Today's guide is on creating a password protected folder on Windows 7 without any additional software. Yes, you heard that right. No extra software at all! This guide is intended for beginners. But please note, this method should not be used to store financial or otherwise highly confidential material. It might be a good place to hide a planning document for a family member's birthday party or similar occasion where you need to keep something secret temporarily.

How to Create the Password Protected Folder

The first thing you should do is go into "Documents" and create a new folder. Name it whatever you like.

When you have done that, double-click on the folder and create a text document. This can be achieved by going into the contextual menu (right-click anywhere inside the folder -> New -> Text Document). Double-click on the text document and paste the following code into it:

The next step is to change the PASSWORD_GOES_HERE text to whatever you'd like your password to be. Don't use an easy-to-guess password.

Now we need to save the text document.

NOTE: The text file must use the .bat extension. Therefore, I have named it locker.bat and saved it as a batch file.

When you have saved your batch file, you will need to delete the text document (.txt).

When you have deleted it, you may now double-click on your batch file. The first time you run the program, it will add a folder titled "Private". This is where you can store your documents to keep away from praying eyes. Go ahead and put some stuff in it now.

Above is a picture of the "Private" folder and "locker.bat".

When you have finished adding your documents to the Private folder, double-click on locker.bat. You will now be prompted whether you wish to lock the document or not. Select "Y" to lock it. When you do this, you will notice that the Private folder quickly disappears.

When you double-click locker again, it will ask you to enter the password.

Warning!

This is NOT the place to store confidential information, such as medical records, financial information or passwords. This is not the best place to hide things from an IT professional, but it should work against newbies or people with intermediate computer skills.

How Do You Bypass It?

However, when they attempt to un-check, it they will get this warning which may make them think twice before disabling it.

Credit: We found this script on many different websites going back years and years and have no idea who made it. If you have proof that you originally wrote the script, please get in contact with us and we will amend the article accordingly.

34 Comments

Ha-ha. Well in that case, you will either need to disable them, otherwise use a proper encrypting program such as TrueCrypt or Axcrypt for your really sensitive files. But I'm sure you already know that! Thanks for commenting :-)

hHa-ha. Well in that case, you will either need to disable them, otherwise use a proper encrypting program such as TrueCrypt or Axcrypt for your really sensitive files. But I'm sure you already know that! Thanks for

this really helps but the problem is when we put password to open the .bat file,the password is shown in plain text and everyone can see it and it becomes unsecure. now my question is, how can we encrypt the password so that no one can view my password? what are the codes to be added in the .txt file? please help out.............

This as someone else suggested did not work, it did not display my 'private' folder. I did however right click on the bat file as also suggested and once you click on edit you can see the password so again great solution not foolproof but no MIT persons around my house so works for me!!

Well this is good to stop little kids from watching you're... well... uhm... private videos and pic, or some below average user from looking at you're stuff in that folder. It is way too easy to bypass this security, you can easily search for the file or files from search bar in windows explorer (explorer will find them, you don't need to know the name of file you can just type the extension in search bar) or you can rightclick the the batch file and go to edit, there you can see the pass. Is there a way to hide files from explorer's search and hide folders from view even if the ''show hidden files'' option is enabled?